


That Which Makes Us Great

by gunslingaaahhh



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-18
Updated: 2011-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-24 23:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunslingaaahhh/pseuds/gunslingaaahhh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How to handle Father's Day when your partner is Steve McGarrett.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Which Makes Us Great

**Author's Note:**

> A little something for Father's Day.

There was an incessant noise, one he couldn’t immediately place. For good reason, though: he was still mostly asleep and it was Sunday, for Gods sakes.

Rolling over, Steve realized it wasn’t his alarm – Danny had told him to stop being such a freak and at least turn the damn thing off on weekends – but his phone. It was buzzing rather angrily at him now and the screen was telling him that it had been ringing for a while. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he blinked at the screen for a moment before hitting speaker and thumbing the answer button.

“What the hell have you been doing for the last half hour?” came Danny’s irritated voice, nasally in the phone’s speakers.

“Uh, sleeping?” Steve replied, glancing at the clock; ten, pretty late for him.

“Clearly. Well listen, those of us living in _civilized society_ were wondering if you would like to come out for breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” Steve frowned, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “And why are you talking in plural?”

“Are you—hello? Earth to Steve: it’s Father’s Day, Grace pretty much demanded that myself, her mother and her step-father all go out to breakfast together. She _also_ demanded that you attend.”

There is a pause, Steve can hear Danny breathing on the other end, but he can’t think of a thing to say. He only paid attention to the calendar insofar as to check which day of the week it was. The date didn’t usually matter unless it was a bill thing or a case thing, and the former was automated.

He couldn’t believe he’d let the day creep up on him like that. He was aware that Father’s Day fell in June, obviously, but for some reason he just hadn’t been paying attention to which Sunday it actually fell on.

“… babe, you still there?” Danny’s voice wafted up from the phone, tone softer now.

“Y-yeah.”

“Whaddaya say, you wanna come?”

“… I’m gonna pass, I think.”

“Ok… I’ll um, I’ll give you a ring in a bit.”

“Alright.”

Steve ended the call, staring at the fading light on the screen before dropping the device back onto the mattress and going to find his swim trunks. A dip in cold water was exactly what he needed, it would wash everything out of his head and leave him empty.

~*~

“That’s the prettiest card I’ve ever seen, Monkey, thank you!” Danny exclaimed, grinning wider at the look of pride on Grace’s face. She’d made the card herself. It didn’t hurt that his was far more attractive than the store-bought one she’d gotten for Stan, either.

“How come Uncle Steve didn’t wanna have breakfast with us?” Grace asked around a mouthful of pancakes.

“Um.” _Oh boy_ , he thought, _not this again._ “Listen, sweetie, we talked about this. Steve’s dad… well he passed away a lot more recently than his mom so holidays are going to hurt for a little while.” He gauged her reaction, watching her little face as she processed his answer.

“Oh. Well, give him a hug for me and tell him I said hi when you see him,” she said, smiling before diving back into her breakfast.

“I certainly will, Monkey.” Danny shot a look at Rachel. Her dark eyes were soft; they were getting along, they were talking about things, Rachel knew about Steve’s situation. The look on her face told him that she was thinking what he was thinking.

“Hey, this was a great breakfast, and I’m so excited to see you next weekend, but Danno’s gotta go take care of some things now, ok?” he said, getting up from his seat at the table and taking a knee next to Grace’s.

“Uncle Steve, right?” she asked, eyes thoughtful.

“That’s right.”

“Ok; love you Danno.”

“Love you too, babe; Rachel. Stan,” he said by way of goodbye, offering a little wave before hugging Grace one last time and heading out the door of the little restaurant.

As he walked towards the Camaro, he felt a little knot tighten in his chest. Before, when it had been Mother’s Day and Steve had been feeling low, he’d known just what to do to fix it. That had been a different kind of wound, though; it had been old, visible but old. And a guy’s relationship with his mother is very different than the one with his father.

Danny didn’t think a call from his Pop would do the trick this time. No, this wound was still achingly fresh, and Danny had been able to hear the shock and realization hit Steve over the phone. You didn’t think about things like that when a person died, it wasn’t until a holiday or something came around that you suddenly remembered and were back in that moment all over again. Danny could remember experiencing those same types of feelings when his Nana had passed, how sad his Ma got around holiday time and how quiet his father became. She’d been like a second mother to him.

Sitting in the drivers seat, Danny thumped helplessly on the steering wheel. He had absolutely no clue what to do about this, how to make Steve hurt a little less. He could offer to help work on the Marquis, maybe doing that would help him feel closer?

“Or just make him angry or something,” Danny muttered out loud to himself as he pulled into traffic. He decided the best option would be to cover all available bases – hey, he knew a thing or two about Boy Scouts, ok – so he made a pit-stop for malasadas and cocoa puffs. Thinking beyond that, he picked up some frozen pizzas and a case of beer, too. At least that way if they got really hungry they could just pop something in the oven.

He was about fifteen minutes from Steve’s when he realized he should maybe call first, just to make sure Steve wasn’t drowning in his own epic man-pain. Grumbling, Danny pulled over, put his hazards on, and fished out his phone. It rang a few times, a sign that it wasn’t immediately on Steve’s person. It went to voicemail and Danny hung up before trying again; he’d told the goof he’d call him, it wasn’t like this was unexpected.

When he got voicemail the second time, he left a message, letting Steve know he was on his way over and not to freak out when he got there. Hopefully he’d get it before Danny walked in the door, laden down with food and beverages.

He needn’t have worried; Steve wasn’t even in the house when Danny got there. He put the perishables in their respective places before wandering out onto the lanai. A towel was spread out on the sand, a respectable distance from the water. It looked rumpled, like someone had been laying on it not too long before. Squinting, Danny scanned the water before finally catching a glimpse of movement pretty far out. He watched the movement, getting a better look as the object came closer to shore. It was Steve, alright.

It took every ounce of restraint Danny had not to run down the steps and onto the sand when Steve finally pulled himself from the water. Usually after a swim he looked refreshed, clear headed, a calm expression on his face. At this particular moment he was none of those things, and Danny kicked himself for not considering that Steve had spent every minute following their earlier conversation in the water.

Steve was a mess. Even from the lanai, Danny could hear the half-choked coughing sobs, the angry hitches of his breath. His face was stormy even as he collapsed onto the towel, flopping onto his back and scowling at the sky. Hands came up to scrub at his face, the noises muffled only slightly. He was also shivering, Danny noticed, and he wondered just how many swims there had been since that phone call earlier. Figuring the towel Steve was laying on was more than likely damp and cold, Danny went into the house and tracked down another one, clean and soft and fluffy.

He paused at the bottom of the steps, though, unsure of how exactly to proceed. There was a damn good chance Steve didn’t want Danny to see him like this, to see him _grieving_ like this… and something clicked into place, then.

Steve was grieving. He’d never really gotten around to doing it when everything happened, dead-set as he was on catching Hesse and anyone else involved. It was like he’d pounded the grief down into something tiny and had stuffed into a box, locked it up, and threw away the key. Yeah, things had come up that had forced him to think about his father, the case he’d been working on. But those were things that were abstract in a way, focusing on the man and his work, not the fact that he was dead and buried. This holiday managing to creep up on him like that was a testament to how focused Steve had been on everything but going through the process of letting go.

Steeling himself against whatever was coming, Danny slowly approached where Steve was laying. He must’ve been making more noise than he’d realized, padding barefoot across the sand, because Steve pulled one of his ninja moves, rolling into a crouch and looking at Danny in a way that was almost feral.

It froze him in his tracks.

“H-hey, babe! I called you, but obviously you missed it; fresh towel?” he offered, holding the towel out with one hand while the other presented itself palm-up in the classic gesture for I-am-not-a-threat. Steve watched him with dark eyes, both there and not. Danny briefly wondered if thinking about the loss of his father was also prompting Steve to reflect on the losses of fellow Navy-men as well.

Slowly rising from his crouch, Steve approached him, still with that guarded look in his eyes. He snatched the towel from Danny’s hand and stared at him. Danny stared back, trying not to back down from that cold look.

“You should go.” The words were clipped, curt, and so totally I-am-a-bad-ass-and-I-am-in-bad-ass-mode-do-not-fuck-with-me. They were also cold, like the look on Steve’s face, and Danny bit his tongue in efforts to resist having something to say about that.

“Look, I realize that you might not want company right now, considering everything, but I brought some pastries and beer and frozen pizza for later if you’re interested…” Danny trailed off, words dying on his lips at the expression on Steve’s face. He looked almost… angry.

Danny quickly wracked his brain for a time where Steve had well and truly been _mad_ at him – not counting what happened the first time they met, Steve hadn’t been angry so much as a pain in the ass – and came up empty. He’d been mad at Steve, sure, plenty of times. That was different, though, because it wasn’t being angry so much as being worried and annoyed and cursed with a goofball for a partner.

“I said go.”

“Steve—“

Before Danny could finish saying whatever asinine thing he’d had in mind, Steve was in front of him, clammy wet hands fisted in his shirt. He hadn’t worn a tie, thank goodness, because if he had he was pretty sure Steve would be using it to strangle him right now.

“What part of ‘get the fuck out’ do you not follow?” Steve growled through grit teeth. His grip was tight and Danny could feel himself on tip-toe, straining to keep his feet on the ground. Leave it to Steve to practically _hoist_ him up in an argument like this.

“The part where grieving and being sad and having actual _emotions_ gives you leave to act like a _fucking asshole_ ,” Danny returned, getting with the program and wrenching Steve’s hands off his shirt. “Do not take your aggression at being a normal human being out on me.”

He takes a step back and folds his arms defiantly across his chest. Two can play this game, oh yes, and Danny has the experience of being divorced on his side.

There’s no need of it, though, because Steve suddenly deflates, picking up the discarded towel and wringing it in his hands. There is a lost look on his face now, and that is the one Danny hates the most, because Steve McGarrett should never, _ever_ look lost.

“Wow, no you’re right, I’m sorry, I guess I’m just letting the day get the better of me,” Steve offers, voice small and sad and perfect for breaking Danny’s heart.

“Hey, don’t worry about it! Maybe I should’ve warned you this morning when we spoke that I’d come over… to tell you the truth, though, babe? I only kind of just decided, just because I wasn’t sure it’d be a good idea.”

“Yeah,” Steve said softly, looking at his hands still. “If it’s any consolation, I’m glad you did.”

“Yeah? Well why don’t we go inside and see what there is to see, hmm?” Danny said before taking Steve’s elbow and guiding him towards the lanai.

~*~

The oven is pre-heating and Danny is trying to will it to go faster. Though if he stared at it any harder, he was pretty sure his eyeballs were going to fall out. Sighing, he leaned back against the counter and took another sip of his beer.

Steve had gone directly to the shower once they were inside, Danny making the necessary preparations for the pizza. Steve apparently hadn’t eaten before his swim and it was a miracle he hadn’t fallen over or drowned or something, having not fueled himself prior to exertion. Danny grumbled about that as he put the pizza in the oven following the handful of beeps, his low mutterings punctuated by louder exclamations about goofy Navy SEALs and being in the water until your extremities pruned and fell off.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Steve said from the table, startling Danny enough that he jumped.

“Ok one: stop sneaking up on me, and two: exactly how long were you in the water, you fool?”

“Dunno; every time I went to get out to come back inside something kept making me go back into the water.”

“Yeah?” Danny quirked an eyebrow at that, setting the oven timer for the pizza and sitting down opposite Steve with his beer.

“Yeah. I dunno, when I’m doing laps I’m not thinking about anything, being in the water clears my head. Figured it’d be a good solution.”

“Solution? As in to a problem?”

“That’s usually what a solution is for, Danno.”

“What exactly was the problem, Steven?”

There was a pause, Steve studying his hands on the table. Danny watched the other man’s brows furrow in thought, watched the wheels turn in his head as he tried to formulate a response that would make sense to someone that wasn’t him.

“This probably makes me sound like a terrible person, but I didn’t even realize today was Father’s Day until you said it. I’d planned on puttering around the house, maybe seeing if you’d wanted to come over to watch a game or something. It hadn’t occurred to me that it was Father’s Day at all.”

Danny nodded, because he’d figured that was the case to begin with.

“I don’t think it makes you sound terrible at all. I think it makes you sound like someone that has spent the better part of a year and more focused on things going on in the here and now, and that doesn’t leave a lot of room for ruminating on the past.”

“Ruminating, huh?”

“Yes, ruminating. It’s a good word, I’ll even let you borrow it,” Danny said before getting up to check on the pizza. “And hey, I’m trying to make a point here.”

“Which would be?” Steve asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“That all that swimming and freaking out is your body’s way of telling you that you need to grieve so you can move on.”

A frown formed on Steve’s face, eyes getting stormy again. Danny rolled his eyes; of course Mr Big-bad-Navy-SEAL would consider grieving a sign of weakness. He snatched another beer for himself and a beer for Steve before sitting back down. He took a sip of his beer and regarded Steve with a raised eyebrow of his own.

“… what now,” Steve muttered, eying Danny cautiously.

“What now what? I’m waiting for the part where you tell me I’m right. Because I am, and you know I am. I realize you’re at a different place in your life than when your mom died, but you can’t sit there and tell me you didn’t grieve for her.”

“Fuck you, Danny, alright? I know you like to think I’m some kind of robot or cyborg or something, but I’m not, ok, I’m not. I’m a person just like you and just like you would’ve grieved for your mom, I grieved for mine.”

“Hey, I’m not trying to fight with you right now, ok? I’m just saying that you’ve done this before, mourning the loss of a parent. And yes, I am aware that the circumstances add a certain weight to things and this is fresher, but c’mon, babe. You’re never going to be able to heal and move on if you don’t go through the process.”

Steve stood then, beer clasped in his fist as he paced the kitchen, checking in on the pizza himself – almost done, another five minutes – and continuing to pace. He felt restless now that he wasn’t in the water, all of his muscles moving and working together in tandem, fluid themselves in their motions. The laps had done their trick of clearing his head, filling up with white nothing.

“What if…” he began before trailing off, leaning against the counter and picking at the label of his beer with one hand. “What if I’m not ready?”

“That you’re not ready is kind of obvious, and don’t take it the wrong way, but you’ve let the house remain as it was when you got here. Sure, the bullet holes from the General Pak thing have been patched up, but it’s all your dad’s furniture and color choices and stuff. Part of the healing process involves going through all of that and—“

“And what, throwing it away?” Steve interrupted, tone bordering on accusing.

“Maybe, yeah, some of it. But not all of it, babe, of course you can keep some of the things that are important to you. I just—what I’m saying is that you’ve let the house become a tomb rather than a place where you live. It isn’t good for you.”

Steve slumped back into his chair at the same moment Danny got up to take the pizza out of the oven. He hisses, pulling his fingers away after setting it on the stove-top to cool a bit, fingertips burned a little. He sucked a couple of them into his mouth before frowning at the reddened digits. Dissatisfied but unable to do anything about it, he turned his attention back to Steve.

“If you need help – and I realize you’re too cool to actually _ask_ for it – I am willing to help you figure it out, if that’s what you want.”

“It’s just that—what about my mom’s stuff? All of her stuff is still in boxes in the attic because that’s where he put it and—“

“And what?” Danny asked softly. “That going through your dad’s stuff will mean going through your mom’s? That you’d be throwing away some of her, too? Well, look at this way: the things of hers that you think are important might not be the same things your dad thought were important. Some of the things he saved you might want, but I’m willing to bet a lot of it you won’t.”

“I just… I’m not ready to get rid of her things, Danny, I’m just not.”

“Ok, that’s fine. But I do think you need to at least sit down and acknowledge that this isn’t technically your father’s house anymore. It’s yours, it should look that way.”

“But—“

“It doesn’t have to be right now, today, this very second. Whenever you’re ready, you know where to find me.”

As he’d been speaking, Danny had been slicing up the pizza and divvying it up onto plates, which he brought over to the table with him. Steve nodded to him in thanks and dove in, practically inhaling. Danny had barely finished his first slice before Steve was up and getting a second helping. Chuckling, Danny grunted in surprise when another slice found it’s way onto his plate.

They ate in companionable silence, munching on pizza crusts and finishing the case of beer. Happening to glance at the time, Danny realized that it had gotten late pretty quickly. He had wanted to go to bed at a reasonable hour, and if he didn’t leave soon he was probably going to fall asleep at Steve’s kitchen table. Opening his mouth to say so, he was cut off by Steve abruptly standing and marching out of the room. Danny waited a beat, then sighed as he realized Steve expected him to follow.

Wandering out into the living room, he watched Steve come back into the room carrying a large shoebox. He settled onto the couch, shooting a glance at Danny before removing the lid and shifting the contents.

Plopping down next to him, Danny leaned over and saw that the box contained photos. He wrinkled his nose; leave it to Steve to have a box of photos floating around in a box with no organization whatsoever. He watched Steve take out a few, shifting them through his fingers. They were shiny, slippery in his hands; Danny’s eyes flicked from the photos to Steve’s eyes and back, trying to gauge his reactions.

“I found these when I was digging around in his office,” Steve suddenly said, sounding like he was speaking to himself. “The box was buried underneath a bunch of other stuff in a corner. I had no idea he’d kept half of them, we’d never been big on taking a lot of pictures.”

He sifted through the box a little and held up one showing Steve’s parents standing on the front lawn, Steve tiny and grinning in front of them, baby Mary held in by her mother. Everyone is smiling, squinting from the sun; they all look happy, even Mary who was too little to know what happy was. Another photo appeared in it’s place, this time of just Steve and his dad, standing by the water. This version of Steve is still young, maybe middle school, and he’s holding a trophy of some kind. Father and son beam at the camera, presumably held by his mom.

“What was that for?” Danny asked, pointing at the trophy.

“Science fair, I think. My project was on how hurricanes work, what kind of science is used to track their patterns, how they get their names. That was the last year we got trophies for it, though; in high school we just got ribbons.” Steve’s voice was soft with remembering.

“Lookin’ pretty proud there,” Danny offered, smiling a little. He knew the feeling.

“Yeah, we’d put this whole thing together, the two of us. It’d taken weeks to figure it out and I’d been really frustrated, but somehow we did it and then I won, I couldn’t believe it. I was so sure Mikey Donovan was gonna win.”

“Why’s that?”

“He did the thing with the potato and the light bulb.”

“Oh please, that’s like the most overdone science fair project ever. Come to think of it, a kid in Grace’s class did that earlier this year when they had their science fair.”

Steve grinned a little and pulled out another photo of him and Mary and his mom, posing at the kitchen table. There is a cake in front of them, centered right in front of his mom; presumably for her birthday. More photos followed, all similar, though fewer and fewer of them contain McGarrett Sr. Danny thinks that after a point he took over the role of photographer, always holding the camera but never in front of it.

As tired as he was, Danny is fascinated by this turn of events; Steve is sharing little pieces of himself, giving Danny insights into the life he had before he became the guy he was presently. It was a weird feeling, but Danny was loving it, this human side to Steve, so he’d be damned if he was going to leave now.

“Oh,” Steve said then, more like a sigh than a word. He’s got a photo in his hands, holding it tightly, pinched between his fingers. Danny leans over to peek and his eyes widen; Steve’s graduation from Annapolis, polished shiny like a new penny, standing beside his father. There are no smiles in this picture, though, and Danny is pretty sure they both have their arms down at their sides. He knows that it most certainly is a stranger taking this picture for them, who might have prompted them to smile or something before saying “cheese!” and clicking the shutter.

Gently, Danny takes the photo from Steve’s hands to get a better look. Being a detective means he’s incredibly good at reading people, even when he’s only got a photograph to look at. Young Steve’s face is composed, but barely. There is a need in his eyes, its written naked all over his face, out there for the camera to capture. There is a stiffness in his posture; Danny frowns, thinking that was due to the fact that Steve wanted to sling an arm around his old man’s shoulders and was fighting to resist the urge. Something about that makes him a little angry and he turns his focus to the expression on the other man’s face. The look is distant, cold, reserved. Not because he doesn’t love his son, or because he isn’t proud, but because he’s walled his emotions off in such a way as that they’ll never break free, not until he’s forced to face them all those years later.

Drawing his eyes away from the photo, Danny meet’s Steve’s gaze and is taken aback at how openly vulnerable he looks. He places the photo back in the box and puts it on the coffee table, away from them, before turning so he is facing Steve on the couch. Something tells him to remain silent, because Steve wants to say something, he can see that, and so he waits, hoping Steve will be able to voice whatever it is that’s got him wrapped up so tight.

“We shook hands,” he begins, eyes cloudy. “The other parents, they hugged their kids, clapped them on the back, kissed them. We shook hands.”

Danny opened his mouth to speak but was cut off as Steve continued.

“I’d wanted to, so bad, to just hug him. And not because I wanted to hug so much as I wanted _him_ to hug _me_. Because he hadn’t, not for a long time, and I thought that maybe he would, because graduating is kind of a big deal… but he didn’t. He reached out to shake my hand so that’s what I did. And I didn’t wanna be mad, because it isn’t his fault that after my mom died he shut down, but I was. I was mad that he wanted to shake hands.”

Steve is crying and Danny isn’t sure the other man is aware of that fact. The tears are just gliding down his cheeks as he talks, remembering.

“I’d wanted to say something to him then, and other times after and before but I couldn’t. I’d wanted to tell him that I was still sad about mom too, and that I was sad about what was going on with Mary, and that it wasn’t like I wanted to never be there—“

At this point, Steve’s words have blurred into half-formed blubbering. Danny’s heart is in shatters on the floor, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s got hands on Steve’s arms and is pulling him in close, smushing the other man’s face to his chest. He can still feel Steve’s lips moving, words pouring from him like confessions. He’s got tears forming himself, hating that Steve hates himself, that he’s still got all this anger built up inside him over things he couldn’t control.

“Steve,” Danny says, voice pitched low, soothing. “Steven, listen to me for a minute, just for a minute.” He rubs at Steve’s back, fingertips digging into the muscles as they skim up and down the length of his spine. He quiets after a moment, snuffling but no longer speaking.

“You need to understand that even though he didn’t say it, or couldn’t say it, your father loved you. It was harder for him to show you or tell you after your mom died, but he did, he loved you. He loved you right up until the end. So I need you to realize that even though there are things he didn’t say, there are a lot of things he _did_ say, just not with the right words.”

Steve pulled back, using the neck of his t-shirt to wipe his nose. His eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, a little blood-shot from crying so much over the course of the day. “He did tell me, right before—“

“And he’d been saying it your whole life, babe. That didn’t stop when your mom passed, the way he went about it changed, that’s all.”

Nodding a little, Steve extended his arms slightly before throwing himself at Danny and burrowing against the other man’s chest. Danny froze for a minute before wrapping his arms around Steve’s shoulders and holding him, rocking slightly. The position couldn’t have been comfortable, Steve awkwardly half in Danny’s lap and half on the couch, but he didn’t seem to mind and eventually settled, dozing lightly. Danny rubbed his back and ran his fingers through Steve’s hair, keeping his touch light and comforting.

Leaning back and pulling Steve with him until they were more stretched out along the length of the couch, Danny heaved a sigh and grinned slightly when he felt Steve lean up and nuzzle underneath his jaw.

“Keep something in mind, ok, when we start going through this stuff,” he whispered, Steve making a questioning noise in response. “Your dad was a great man, he did great things, but all any parent wants is for their child to be better, to have and do better. They want you to take what they did and make it great, greater than it was, greater than they could do. You do that, and he’ll be proud of you forever.”

“I love it when you get sappy,” Steve mumbled into Danny’s shirt, causing the other man to chuckle a little.

Smiling, Danny adjusted himself a little so he was more actually wrapped around Steve and gave him a squeeze. Steve was taking the first step, and that was really all he could ask for. He was sure his father would be proud.  



End file.
